The Prime Ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia held talks in Prague on strengthening defence cooperation and tackling irregular migration

The meeting of the two Prime Ministers in Prague, which took place at the invitation of the Czech Prime Minister, was the third in the last two weeks, which testifies to the exceptional relations between our countries. An important topic discussed was enhancing defence cooperation. Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia have decided to acquire Swedish CV90 armoured combat vehicles and want to take advantage of the benefits. “We discussed cooperation on the use of the so-called discount clause. This enables savings to be made, for example, by allowing the manufacturer to use production lines more efficiently. The first joint meeting will take place next week. We also discussed the possibility of cooperation in the area of sharing the test results of these vehicles, which would mean further savings for both countries,” said Prime Minister Fiala.

The Prime Ministers also discussed the solutions to the issue of irregular migration. Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are closely monitoring the situation, also in view of the experience with the rapid increase in irregular transit migration last summer. The Czech Prime Minister appreciated the significant improvement in cooperation in this area with the Slovak side, which is helping to solve the problem. “We share the same view on how to tackle irregular migration – strengthening the protection of the external border or speeding up and streamlining the process of returning irregular asylum seekers to their countries of origin. We need to continue to seek a solution to this problem at European level, which unfortunately did not succeed sufficiently at the European Council last week due to blocking by Poland and Hungary. This is not in the interest of the Czech Republic, it is not responsible,” added Prime Minister Fiala.

The agenda of the upcoming NATO Summit in Vilnius was also an important topic of the meeting. Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia are seeking the strongest possible political support and expression of prospects for Ukraine's future NATO membership, which will be a key topic of the summit. Both countries are also committed to helping Ukraine. “We discussed cooperation between the two countries in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine. The Czech Republic has taken over the patronage of the reconstruction of the Dnipropetrovsk region, but our assistance is not limited to it. During this year's International Engineering Fair in Brno we want to connect other Czech companies involved in reconstruction work in Ukraine with the representatives of Ukrainian regions and state administration. We also expect the participation of partners from Slovakia,” said the Czech Prime Minister.